My S5 T-Mobile Lollipop can't read the SD card, how can I fix this?

[Oldoobie]

S5 TMobile Lolipop can't read SD card - Tech sppt can't fix

I foolishly upgraded my T Mobile S5 to Lollipop. After upload, Lollipop can't see many of my Apps on the SD card. When I press on the App which is grayed out, it sends me to Google Play where I am immediately offered the download button. Upon pressing the download button it starts a download but just remains in the starting download position. Called T Mobile tech support. After 40 minutes or so they gave up and had me do a factory reset. Now it seems that as the Apps reload after a reset, I cannot move them to my SD card. UGGGG

 

[Rukbat]

Re: S5 TMobile Lolipop can't read SD card - Tech sppt can't fix

Take the SD card out of the phone (with the phone turned off) and put it into a card reader. Plug that into a PC. Go to a cmd window and type the underlined part of

C:>chkdsk e: /f

(assuming the card reader shows up as drive F - change as needed), then press enter. It'll take a while, but that will tll you what's going on with the card and attempt to fix any bad areas.

Then, if the card is usable (it may have gotten completely corrupted, it could be a counterfeit card that chose to go when you did the update), put it back into the phone and turn the phone on.

Bear in mind that Android was never designed to run apps from the SD card, so those apps that will run from it are just luck (or a developer who knows how to write apps that will run from the card). If the developer is good, and needs code that won't run from the card, he'll write the app so it can't be moved (the button will be grayed out). Apps that constantly write to their own folders can do that in internal storage, because that kind of storage is built to change where the writes go all the time, so the storage gets written to evenly. The SD card isn't made for that, so the app writes data to the same cells, over and over, until they doe (there's a fixed number of times you can write to a cell). Saving pictures is fine - each picture gets saved somewhere else. Using an app on the card can eat the card in a short time (especially fast-action games, that have to be almost constantly writing their current state [an Android app has to maintain its own state at all times - Android can force kill any app any time it needs the RAM space]).

 

[Magyarbear]

I have seen this too. While there is nothing wrong with checking out the integrity of the SD card, that is probably not the problem. Indeed Samsung does not support moving apps to the SD card officially, but the application manager (and some apps) can do it for you. I use AppMgr III.

There are several ways to avoid or correct his.

1. Before the upgrade, move all your apps back to device storage.

2. After the upgrade, reboot the phone and clear the application cache. You can find instructions eleswhere. This is always a good idea after an upgrade. Then go to the apps store and reinstall one of the apps. A small one is a nice candidate (I use the Delta Airlines app). This should cause all the apps to reappear after a reboot. Note, the reinstall will take a long time.

3. I have not tried this, but I am pretty sure this will work. The SD card is not being mounted properly after the upgrade. Clear the application cache, and reboot. Unmount the SD card and then mount it again. This can be done in settings. Reboot the phone.